Ill Dreams
by Aranel Carnilino
Summary: Pippin faces a lonely night at Minas Tirith, worried about Frodo and Sam, until Gandalf comforts him…


**Ill Dreams**

_Aranel Carnilino; 2006_

Peregrin Took, guard of the Citadel, solemnly lit the well-used stump of candle at his bedside, driving away a small measure of the enveloping gloom of his lodging in Minas Tirith. The rain set a steady thudding on the white tiled roof, but he hardly noticed, as the noise had merged with the silence to create an oblivion of internal serenity within his mind.

Pippin sat halfheartedly on his small bed, reluctant to allow sleep to offer itself, watching the flickering candlelight set strange dark creatures on the walls. He picked up the candle and the shadows danced. At length, however, his eyes grew heavy (and making the shadows on the wall shift frenziedly was holding little appeal anymore), so he at last forced himself to get under the covers. But he couldn't bring himself to blow out the candle—not just yet. He blew tentatively, softly, pondering whether he should extinguish the only light in the room, but decided that he would rather not. He set the candle down with a dull thud. There was something…something he couldn't quite put his finger on…there it was—he didn't _want_ to go to sleep. He longed for Gandalf to return soon.

Pippin was growing a bit creepy. He had had no companions other than shadows for quite some time now, and a feeling of malaise was gradually growing on him. The carved bear faces along the skirting of the pine corner table snarled menacingly from the shadows. A sentinel passing by became a fiend endeavoring to break in. Sometimes his own breathing even startled him, at which time he would pause in recognition, scolding himself for a coward. He absently swiped at a cobweb in the corner. Then he remembered. The dream…

A frightened sort of exhausted stupor at last overcame him, and he sat, half-asleep against the bed frame, until at last, Gandalf arrived. The wizard noticed that Pippin looked rather pensive, and inquired of him what was on his mind.

"Well," said Pippin slowly, "last night…I had a bad thought."

"A dream?"

"Well, yes…."

_Dark wanderings—alone at night—through the midst of a foggy dripping forest. The trees sway rhythmically in the wind as the shadows shift ominously. Wild grappling tree branches try to snatch at Pippin—he just barely escapes this one, that one, and the next. He looks wildly about the surrounding gloom. The great ancient creaking of trees and the hissing of the wind through the branches creates an atmosphere of fearful tension. There is a muffled cry for help. Or is it only the mournful wailing of the wind? _

"Oh, help! I cannot reach you! I cannot find you! How can I aid you when I myself need help?"

_The shadows continue to shift. A tempestuous storm amasses. Driving rain falls in myriad sheets, whilst lightning flashes threateningly in the corners of the dark sky and thunder roars its disapproval. The pleading cry comes again, and this time, Pippin recognizes the voice. It is Frodo! _

"Where are you? I can't find you! Call out again! Let me know where you are! Where is Sam? Why isn't he with you?"

_Pippin's voice seems lost in the wind and the rain. Once the words have departed him, they dissipate, are captured by the downpour, and fall to the earth, lost forever in the turmoil of the mire at his feet. _

_The cry for help once more…growing steadily further away…. Pippin stumbles and falls in a sloshing rivulet of thick mud. He struggles to regain his feet and discern from whence the voice has come, but he never hears the cry again. Finally, lost, bewildered, and in utter despair, he sits down in the sludge and begins to sob, knowing abjectly that he has failed Frodo._

"Frodo!"_—The_ v_oice is tenuous and despairing—_"Please come back! Please! I didn't mean to be a fool of a Took! I—I didn't mean to take the palantir from Gandalf! I couldn't help it! It was driving me mad! Please, Frodo! Please forgive me! Did _He_ find you? And was it because of me? I'm so wretched! I won't do it again!"

_It is too late for apologies, Peregrin Took. _

Pippin looked up sorrowfully. Remembering his dream had done him an ill turn.

"You are concerned for Frodo and Sam," Gandalf finally said with slow deliberation. "I know. I am as well. But _you _must not fault yourself. Only I can. Frodo and Sam struggle ceaselessly on to their deaths, whilst I linger here in idle uncertainty—now hopeful, now despairing—waiting for news of their failure. Such responsibility, my lad! Such a weight on my mind, as if I hadn't enough things to trouble about already! But you, Peregrin? What good does it do for you to worry? Let me do the fretting! Meanwhile, you serve your new master, Denethor, diligently and loyally. Who can say what may transpire? We may yet be fortunate."

Pippin might have been heartened by the wizard's latter statement had he not been struck with such a sense of desolation at the manner in which Gandalf spoke it. He knew the wizard did not even believe it himself. Such morbid thoughts concerning Frodo and Sam's bleak outlook! He forcefully banished them from his mind.

"But…Gandalf? The palantir! I—did I somehow show _Him _where they were?"

"No, I do not think so. I hope with all my being that it is not so. The information you knew would, at the worst, tell him that we intended something other than smuggling the Ring to Gondor. You have undergone a struggle that I myself dread to face. Once again a lowly hobbit succeeds where the powerful might have failed. I think, Peregrin my lad, that you (albeit through your folly, impudence, and unnatural curiosity) have gotten a glimpse of the enemy's plan to attack Gondor, while he thought you were in Saruman's keeping – forced to look into the palantir for torment, perhaps. That gives us an advantage. He likely thinks _you_ are Baggins, that you have the Ring, and that Saruman is keeping it from him. The dissension this will cause gives us time. Isengard must answer to Mordor first, and the forces of Isengard are no more. Time is what we need and we now have it."

Pippin felt better at this. He voiced another question that was on his mind. "Was there something…why was I so drawn to it? Who made them? Were there some magical—"

"Peregrin Took!" cried Gandalf, resignedly leaning his staff in a corner and sitting on the bed across from Pippin. "You were drawn to it because of your innate and often pesky habit of being overly curious. As far as I know, the palantiri have no inherent magical properties other than for those purposes for which they were created. But they are not to be trifled with all the same. They were wrought by Fëanor long ago – by the same hand that created the Silmarili. Perhaps you've never heard of them. They literally wreaked havoc upon Middle-earth. They toppled kingdoms. They drove people mad. They— ah, I see. Old Gandalf has fallen into young Peregrin's trap again. Tricked into answering yet another question! Well, no more. Even wizards must be allowed peace from being importuned by curious young hobbits. They have to sleep sometimes." He threw back his covers and lay down. "Now, blow out that candle and ease your mind about Frodo and Sam. What is _meant _to happen will happen."

"But what about—"

"Oh no…. I think not. Good night."

"Good night, Gandalf."

**Finis**


End file.
